What causes diarrhea and why

Stool disorder occurs even in the healthiest person who overeat, has been exposed to a viral or bacterial infection, and does not follow the rules of hygiene.

Diarrhea is not just a temporary inconvenience, accompanied by negative symptoms, due to which a person experiences pain in the abdomen and may even lose their ability to work.

In some cases, it is a temporary phenomenon that passes with the elimination of the external provocateur, but no less often diarrhea is one of the symptoms of a serious illness.

The more often this is observed in a person, the more reasons for concern he should have, and the more more likely, this may indicate diseases of the digestive system, viral or parasitic defeat.

According to the WHO, in low-health countries just 8 years ago, diarrhea caused death of one and a half million children, whose body has undergone dehydration with frequent pathological defecation.

For an adult, diarrhea in a chronic manifestation can be no less dangerous if the cause of its occurrence is not found and eliminated.

Having basic medical knowledge about how dangerous the cause of loose stools, mistaken for a harmless disorder, can be, will help to avoid many unpleasant consequences.

Brief description of the problem

According to the official definition, diarrhea is a sharp increase in the number of bowel movements, accompanied by pain sensations, liquefaction of stool, often bloating, heartburn, belching, rumbling and other pathological signs.

The scientific name for this phenomenon is diarrhea. This term also covers a set of signs necessary for setting a reliable diagnosis.

One of them - for example, liquefaction of the usual consistency of feces, cannot be the basis for the diagnosis of diarrhea.

Modifications of defecation products are found both from taking medications and from stressful situations.

The grounds for alarm and claims that a person has diarrhea arise under the following conditions:

• at an individual rate of 1-2 times a day, a person empties the intestines two or more times more often than usual;
• the consistency of the stool changes, becomes liquid or watery;
• the color of the more frequent discharge becomes uncharacteristic, can become frightening - white, red, black, yellow or greenish;
• the discharge is heterogeneous and not formed and may be accompanied by foam;
• a fetid odor appears that is different from the usual;
• the contents of the intestine can come out in a partially digested form, often in the form of whole pieces of food;
• the act of defecation can take place with nausea and vomiting, abdominal cramps and cramps;
• the above symptoms are accompanied by intoxication, in the form of weakness, lethargy, apathy, fever;
• frequent, but not obligatory, may be rotten belching, flatulence, rumbling, feeling of fullness.

In such conditions, the pills that are in every home medicine cabinet do not help.

A person feels sick and is in constant physical and mental stress due to the need to empty the intestines, which occurs constantly.

This condition is called diarrhea, and this is a phenomenon that appears due to reasons of variable etiology, both physiological and pathological.

Diarrhea can be acute or chronic, and each is dangerous in its own way. Dehydration is just one of the risks associated with diarrhea.

It is much worse if a chronic or systemic disease of the body becomes the provoking cause. In this case, the pathological condition appears constantly and serves not as a consequence, but as a symptom of a dangerous disease.

Types of diarrhea and objective causes of occurrence

Modern schools of gastroenterology distinguish several reasons why there is a disorder in the normal functioning of the intestine.

Differentiation by cause-and-effect series has become the basis for the classification of types of diarrhea by etiological grounds.

This list includes the following reasons for the occurrence:

• infectious (viral diseases, foodborne toxicoinfections, parasitic infestations, bacteriological infections);
• toxic (poisoning with salts of heavy metals, mercury, arsenic, industrial poisonous compounds);
• medications that occur when taking certain medications (they can be antibiotics, NSAIDs, antipsychotics, any drugs that have a suppressive effect on the intestinal microflora or motor skills);
• neurogenic factors that negatively affect the central nervous system (stress, emotional experiences, shocks experienced);
• dyspeptic phenomena associated with a violation of the digestive system or enzymatic deficiency;
• alimentary, in which the disorder is due to the use of inappropriate foods or an allergic reaction to them.

The provoking factors that can potentially disrupt normal digestion and healthy motility may differ from case to case. and influence a person depending on the state of his nervous system, emotional balance and the health of individual organs of the digestive system food.

Diarrhea does not appear out of the blue, but always occurs for a specific reason. And the sooner the doctor manages to find out why he appeared and occurs in this way, the faster he can help the patient.

Physiological and easy to explain

In a healthy person, stool disorders are understandable in nature, mild diarrhea passes quickly, does not lead to almost any serious changes in the body.

This is because it is triggered by mundane things, such as overeating, oily or not food inherent in the food mentality, abundant alcohol consumption on the occasion of the solemn feast.

The most common reason why diarrhea appears, according to statistics, is food poisoning:

• eating stale foods;
• non-observance of personal hygiene by the patient himself;
• food in street food service points, where cooking is carried out without sanitary and hygienic standards;
• simultaneous eating of food components that are considered incompatible and cause negative processes in the stomach.

It is akin to food and alcohol poisoning, when a stool disorder occurs if a person is not characterized by systematic consumption of alcoholic beverages, and he drank, eating a lot and abundantly.

Everyone, at least once in his life, after a plentiful feast, woke up with abdominal pains and found that he had diarrhea.

Spontaneous disorder of the digestive function is also observed with strong excitement, stressful situations, pronounced emotional experiences, and sorrowful news.

Diarrhea, and rather prolonged, occurs with irregular eating and strict diets, or eating food, in which lacks the substances necessary for the human body: protein-free, carbohydrate-free or some other strict diet.

Any deviation in diet, ranging from irregular and unsystematic, and ending with excessive restrictions, or abuse, can cause diarrhea.

This is both the primary and most obvious cause of the disorder in the normal functioning of the digestive system.

With it, diarrhea becomes a frequent or chronic phenomenon, a symptom of a functional failure or systemic disease that has arisen.

External pathogenic agents

The world around a person is full of external enemies, usually microscopic in size, which, entering the body, and starting their harmful activity there, can cause diarrhea.

These include:

• viral infections (rotaviruses, adenoviruses and enteroviruses);
• bacterial infections (salmonella, shigella, klebsiella, escherichia, yersinia and other agents);
• parasites in which diarrhea is one of the most common symptoms;
• foodborne diseases.

Rotaviruses and adenoviruses are called intestinal flu in paramedical circles because diarrhea invariably accompanies them.

Their main activity takes place in the small intestine, where they damage and infect entire segments of the intestine.

Enteroviruses attack the epithelial intestinal tissue, which can cause regular irritation and modification of the stool in conjunction with pain.

Pathogenic agents, in particular parasites, entering the body, cause it to be poisoned with the products of their vital activity and the toxins that they produce.

Diarrhea is a common consequence of such poisoning. It is especially difficult for a person to tolerate food poisoning, which contaminates food with toxins, and already with food enters the stomach and intestines.

Diarrhea and the accompanying negative phenomena are the result of poisoning with toxic substances. Roughly the same picture occurs with parasitic invasion.

Negative external influences

A modern person takes medicine without thinking about what, in addition to a healing effect, a medicine can also have a destructive effect.

Destruction of pathogenic bacteria and taking antibacterial drugs, in case of excessive or incorrect administration, can disrupt the healthy intestinal microflora.

An imbalance occurs, conditionally pathogenic microorganisms, in small quantities necessary for a person, begin to multiply due to uncharacteristic conditions created by drugs.

Dysbacteriosis can lead to serious disorders of the digestive process, and this leads to malfunctions of the metabolic system and impaired absorption of nutrients from food.

Diarrhea with dysbiosis is a continuation of this process.

Long-term use of laxatives can also lead to permanent problems with stool, when artificially induced diarrhea becomes the result of a violation of the natural intestinal motility.

Therapy with certain groups of drugs can be the cause of the disorder with prolonged use.

And on the instructions for almost every medication, you can read diarrhea, nausea or vomiting in similar effects.

Do not forget that in the modern world there are many products of industrial chemistry.

Diarrhea, especially acute or chronic, occurs against the background of poisoning with nitrates, pesticides, household chemicals and heavy metal salts.

Diarrhea is a frequent companion of people who work with such substances on duty, resulting in severe poisoning or overdose.

Chronic, systemic and autoimmune diseases

You should not postpone going to the doctor with pronounced symptoms that are observed for several days. After all, diarrhea in this case may also be the result of a serious illness that has just begun to develop.

Diarrhea is a typical symptom in various pathologies:

• autoimmune (caused by atopic dermatitis, allergies, intestinal damage);
• tumor growths of various etiologies (from a polyp of the stomach to adenocarcinoma);
• bowel diseases (colitis, enteritis, enterocolitis);
• pathologies of the stomach (diarrhea accompanies almost all of them);
• diseases of the liver and pancreas;
• inflammation of the gallbladder.

And in each case, the answer to the question of why there is a long and negative defecation disorder, the answer lies in elementary eating disorders.

Diarrhea, which quickly passed and did not force to take measures, to be examined by a doctor, to take tests, could be the start from which pathology began to develop.

A person should treat his health responsibly, be attentive to what is considered to be annoying little things, and regularly undergo medical examinations.

Otherwise, diarrhea will become not a physiological phenomenon with explainable reasons, but a symptom of a serious illness.

Why is it good to ask at a stage when the answer is in harmless eating disorders. And not at the moment when it is practically difficult to help, and it is difficult to answer why this is happening.

Treatment methods and preventive measures in each case of diarrhea are different. It depends on the etiology, the provoking cause, the severity and the form that the defecation disorder has acquired.

And if the patient's condition is serious, then it is better to go to the doctor, undergo an examination and send tests, than to bring the matter to possible dehydration, weight loss and other negative consequences.

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